Biz Tips Blog: Online Marketing, Visibility and Business Blogging Tips

Amazon Announces Kindle Book Lending Program

Now this is cool! If you own Amazon Kindle digital books, you can now loan them to your friends and relatives for 14 days. No Kindle required, but you do have to have the Kindle software on your computer or smart phone to read the books. Here's the announcement I received to day because a) I own a Kindle and b) I have content for sale in the Kindle Store.

We are excited to announce Kindle book lending (http://www.amazon.com/kindle-lending). The Kindle Book Lending feature allows users to lend digital books they have purchased through the Kindle Store to their friends and family. Each book may be lent once for a duration of 14 days and will not be readable by the lender during the loan period.

All DTP [this refers to titles YOU publish on Kindle - you are publishing your ebooks and reports on Kindle, aren't you? If not, see link below.] titles are enrolled in lending by default. For titles in the 35% royalty option, you may choose to opt out of lending by deselecting the checkbox under "Kindle Book Lending," in the "Rights and Pricing" section of the title upload/edit process. You may not choose to opt out a title if it is included in the lending program of another sales or distribution channel. For more details, see section 5.2.2 of the Term and Conditions.

For more info on how Kindle Book Lending works, see our FAQ here: http://forums.digitaltextplatform.com/dtpforums/entry.jspa?externalID=581

Right now, I have 4 marketing books on my Kindle that are eligble for lending, and I'd love to share them with you! If there's one you would like to read, post the title in the comments. Be sure your email address is included in the comment form (not visible to anyone but me) so I can send you the link to download the book. Check them out and let me know which one you'd like to read. First comments get first choice.

Win a Free Ticket to Facebook Success Summit 2010!

You've probably seen and heard the buzz about the Facebook Success Summit, the first ever online summit dedicated to teaching businesses how to use Facebook to attract and engage customers and build their business.

While today (September 16) is the last day to save 50% on the registration fee, I've got an opportunity for you...

I'm attending the Summit and I was just given a free ticket ($595 value). Since I don't need two tickets, I'm giving one away.

Here's what you need to do to be eligible for the random drawing:

1. Go to The Blog Squad Facebook Page. If you haven't already done so, click the Like button.

2. Post on the Wall. Tell me the biggest challenge your business faces in implementing a Facebook marketing strategy.

• You can write a blog post and include the link on your wall post.
• You can create a video and post it on the wall
• You can create an audio and post it on the wall.
• Or you can simply write your entry.

3. Your entry must be posted by 5 pm Pacific Time on Saturday, September 18.

4. I will choose the winner in a random drawing on Sunday, September 19 and notify the winner.

If you're not sure what the Summit is all about, read the details here (and grab a free lesson from Mari Smith while you're at it). Then follow the instructions above if you want a chance to win a ticket valued at $595.

Good luck!

Tweet

Online Video for Branding and Visibility - Interview with Lou Bortone

Recently I had the pleasure of talking with my friend and colleague Lou Bortone, also known as the Online Video Guy. He talks about branding and online visibility about as much as I do, only in the context of video. So I snagged about 20 minutes of Lou's time and asked him to clarify how video can be used to boost your visibility on the Web.

Interview with Lou Bortone

(20:29 min)

Denise: Hi. I'm Denise Wakeman, founder of The Blog Squad and today I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to my friend and colleague, Lou Bortone. Lou and I have known each other for a few years and have partnered on a couple of projects most notably, our self study course "Online Video Made Easy."

Lou is an online branding specialist, a video pro, and a visibility expert. A man after my own heart. He's also known for his wacky LouTube videos. I'm not sure if he's making these any more, I'll have to check on that. Also, he's well known for the montage videos that he frequently creates to celebrate people he knows.

The purpose of talking with Lou today is to learn about his perspective on creating visibility with video and why it's so important. Welcome Lou.

Follow the Social Media Success Summit on Twubs

2500 people are attending the Social Media Success Summit which kicked off today with a keynote presentation by Guy Kawasaki about how to use Twitter as a marketing tool. And the tweets were flying. Darn near impossible for me to keep up with the tweets, tweet what I was hearing and pay attention. I mostly opted to staying tuned in to Guy and learned a few new tips and tricks to maximize the power of Twitter.

Whether or not you are attending the Summit, you can glean quite a few gems during the presentations. When you follow the hashtag #SMSS10 you'll get a steady stream of quotes and tips being delivered by 22 presenters over the next 4 weeks (my presentation on how to make your blog a social media destination is on May 25).

You can also sign in the the Twubs site set up Kathy Colaiacovo (my wonderful social marketing VA) and follow the tweets without the distraction of your other streams. Check it out and join the conversation!

Tweet Cloud - Do you know what you REALLY tweet about?

Are you ever curious to know what exactly you're tweeting about? Sometimes it's fun to check out the silly applications that are constantly being developed for twitter. When I saw a link for tweet cloud, I was curious.

Tweet cloud analyzes the text in your tweets for up to one year and renders a visual cloud of the words you use most...with the most being in the biggest fonts. I realized this can be instructive too.

My top 3 words are: blog, tips and video (though it seem like the word "online" is bigger than video). That sounds about right. I like to stay fairly focused on twitter and do tweet a lot of blogging tips. I also get a lot of excellent feedback from people who appreciate the tips so I'm glad I'm on track.

Here's my cloud:

The one slightly annoying this about tweet cloud is that they automatically send a tweet to your twitter stream without your permission. This could be construed as spam by some. I'd prefer the option to tweet or not to tweet.

Nonetheless, it's a fun way to visually see what you're tweeting about the most.

Let's connect on twitter!